Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, is deliving a speech on prisoner rehabilitation. Photograph: Ray Tang/Rex Features

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5.34pm GMT

Afternoon summary

Here's an afternoon summary.

• Labour has said that customers won't benefit from the government's plan to force energy companies to put people on their lowest tariffs. Caroline Flint, the shadow energy secretary, issued this statement.

David Cameron is trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes. The prime minister promised to force the energy companies to put everyone on the cheapest tariff and he has broken his promise. All the government is really doing is reducing the number of tariffs on offer. If energy companies are only allowed to offer one tariff for every type of contract, that’s not the lowest tariff – it’s the only tariff.

The cheapest energy deal in an uncompetitive market will still not be a good deal. Unless the government really reforms the energy market, there’s nothing to stop the energy companies just putting up the prices of all their tariffs. The time has come for a complete overhaul of our energy market.

• Ed Davey, the energy secretary, has said that many people will pay less as a result of the government's plans to make energy companies put people on their lowest tariffs. "I think many people will end up paying less, because this will both make it easier for them to choose what is best for them and I think it will drive competition, and therefore reduce prices," he said. "I can't guarantee every single person will end up paying less but I think this is a really good deal for people across the country."

• Lord O'Donnell, the former cabinet secretary, has said that the civil service needs to become more willing to take risks.

We need a culture that says, if something goes wrong, that’s fine. In the private sector you try 10 projects, if six of them succeed, you’re doing well, and four will be failures. In the civil service, if we did that and we had four failures, we’d have four PAC hearings.

He also, in an interview with the BBC's Daily Politics, that civil servants should be paid more.

That's all from me. It's been a bit patchy today. But tomorrow we've got PMQs.

Thanks for the comments.

5.34pm GMT

Today the Department for Work and Pensions has published Professor Malcolm Harrington's third review of the work capability assessment - the test used to decide whether people are entitled to disability benefit.

I welcome Professor Harrington’s findings that our strenuous efforts to improve the WCA are indeed making a difference. The system we inherited wasn’t working properly, but the changes we have made already to make the WCA more accurate and effective mean the proportion of people being placed in the Support Group for ESA has more than doubled in just two years.

However, I also share his view that more needs to be done. The WCA is the right process for determining who is able to work and who needs support, and we are committed to continual improvement, which is why I am happy to accept all of Professor Harrington’s recommendations. It is in everyone’s interest to make sure the system is as fair and as accurate as possible.

And this is what Liam Byrne, the shadow work and pensions secretary, is saying about it.

Professor Harrington’s review is devastating – progress is slow and incomplete, Ministers are failing to grip the shambolic appeals system, and the whole process is utterly failing to get people back into work.

This damning report completely vindicates Labour’s call for fast and fundamental reform of the Work Capability Assessment. Ministers must now stop dragging their feet and take the urgent action we have been calling for.

Confused? Hoban and Byrne are both talking about the same document but, as you can tell, it is open to rival interpretations. If you want to make your own mind up, you can read it here (pdf).

And here are the quotes Byrne has selected to back up his "it's devastating" claim.

Slams slow overall progress:

“A number of the major charities in this year’s call for evidence say that although they have seen some change for the better, it is disappointingly incomplete in coverage and depth. I agree with them.” (p6)

Criticises the pace of reforming the test:

“So far as the descriptors are concerned, progress has been positive but slow.” ...”The evidence-based review has unfortunately taken longer to develop than is ideal.” (p6, 39)

Warns government has no grip on embattled appeals process:

“The appeals process remains an area of considerable concern for the Review. The First-tier Tribunal President opines that this is outside the remit of the Review. The Review disagrees. Appeals are a fundamental part of the overall WCA process.” (p27)

Warns government has no grip on Atos:

“Whilst Atos have developed an impressive list of training materials for their healthcare professionals and their trainers, the Review has seen little evidence to show the effectiveness of these courses in either driving up the quality of assessments or improving the skills and knowledge base of the attendees.” (p45)

After conducting unannounced visits to Benefit Delivery Centres and Atos Assessment Centres Harrington concludes that “progress has been slower than hoped for and the scope and depth of these changes is less than desirable.” (p33)

Confirms chaos in Work Programme:

“Only 9 per cent of people in the Work Related Activity Group were in employment 12–18 months after their claim.”

“Employment outcomes for ESA claimants remain considerably poorer than for those for new Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants with one quarter of ESA claimants entering jobs within 12–18 months, against around three quarters leaving the jobseeker’s register within six months.” (p36)

Earlier I wrote about the national well-being report. (See 10.27am.) There was a launch this morning, and the Press Association has filed some copy from it. Here's an extract.

Lord Gus O'Donnell, the former cabinet secretary who is chairing the Government's Well-being Commission, said he hoped the data, which will be collected annually, could be used to revolutionise the future of policy making. "We need to come up with some guidance on how to turn these ideas into practical policy conclusions. "It will revolutionise public policy, not just in the UK but globally. "We have the potential to transform the way people talk about this." David Halpern, of the Cabinet Office, said it would be a "long road" but agreed there were areas where the research could have a "significant impact". He said the research could fuel the debate for the return of National Citzens Service, which would could cost the Government millions of pounds but have a long-term well-being effect on people's lives, according to the report. Lord Richard Layard, from the London School of Economics who spoke at the launch of the report, said: "Income matters but it's not the only thing that matters, and it's only a minor part that explains the variation of well-being people. "Nothing is as important as the emotional health of a child, which has to become a major focus for our education system. "It has a major influence on their subsequent success, not just their well-being but their relationships, physical health, and whether they can get a good job which is all very important. "One of the most striking things to come out of this report was the importance mental health has on people. "It can reduce life expectancy at the same rate as smoking. "There needs to be better service not only in treating mental health problems but also in preventing them." The report measured 40 indicators which influence people's well-being, including relationships, anxiety levels and hobbies, alongside traditional economic, social and environmental statistics to provide fuller picture of life in Britain. It allows experts to identify the differences in well-being levels across the country rather than using a national average. A new interactive map and graphs allows the public to see which area has the highlight number of happy residents, with Rutland and the Outer Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland topping the list. The maps also measures satisfaction, "worthwhileness" and anxiety - highlighting that 46% of people in inner London suffer from high or very high anxiety.

5.34pm GMT

David Cameron Photograph: Sky News

At a news conference in Northern Ireland David Cameron was asked about the CPS decision to press fresh charges against Andy Coulson. This is how he replied.

I’ve made clear my regret on many occasions about this issue. I’ve also said very clearly that we should allow the police and the prosecuting authorities to follow the evidence wherever it leads. Bu I think when we get to a situation with impending court cases we should probably leave it at that.

John McDonnell, the Labour MP, has just introduced his bill to allow MPs to job share under the 10-minute rule procedure. That doesn't mean that the bill is going to become law, but it does mean that he has enabled the Commons to have a short debate on the subject. There are more details here, on the Equality and Diversity Forum website. McDonnell said that job sharing would allow more women and disabled people to become MPs.

Right the way across our society at the moment, in virtually every walk of life, public and private sector, in most professions, job sharing is now a reality. And it has proved to be successful for the organisations concerned and for the individual. In fact, there's substantial evidence that job sharing actually is more productive than the employment of individuals. This House should not be the last bastion standing against a measure that could increase access to women but, from my point of view, particularly people with disabilities and carers being able to stand as members of parliament.

My view is this: we should explore every opportunity we can to assist in promoting greater access to people who would like to serve as MPs. This isn't positive discrimination. It is simply introducing practical, administrative change to facilitate wider participation.

McDonnell was opposed by the Tory MP David Nuttall. He said he thought job sharing in parliament would be "unworkable".

Apparently this bill is about increasing diversity. Now, I do not accept that as a middle-aged white male, I'm unable to represent others who do not fit that description, be they female, from an ethnic minortiy, gay or disabled. It is nonsense to suggest the composition of this House must mirror exactly the compostion of the United Kingdom. I doubt very much that someone such as Winston Churchill would have ticked many boxes for diversity, and yet few would dispute that he spoke for the whole of our country at the most difficult of times for our nation. You do not increase true representation simply by having people who look like others.

Nuttall did not force a vote and so McDonnell was given leave to introduce his bill. At this stage, as he presented it, there was some sniggering in the chamber. This bill is unlikely to go any further, but McDonnell has put the issue on the agenda and he has some cross-party support. The Tory MP Robert Halfon, the Lib Dem MP Lorely Burt and the Green MP Caroline Lucas are among those supporting the bill. And Jon Cruddas, the head of Labour's policy review, also put his name to it.

• Labour has cast doubt on the viability of Chris Grayling’s plan to ensure that offenders get mentors when they are released to help them go straight. Grayling unveiled the plan in a major speech setting out his priorities as justice secretary. (See 1.05pm.) But Jenny Chapman, a shadow justice minister, said: “Who are these mentors going to be? There are 87,000 people released from prison each year and if you’re going to try and find a suitable mentor for each of them, they’re going to need to be trained, they’re going to need supervision. There’s a great deal that could go wrong with this if it’s not done correctly.”

• Steve Webb, the pensions minister, has said that EU plans to change the way pension liabilities are calculated would have a “devastating” impact on British pension schemes. “A likely outcome of the new rules would be to increase pension liabilities by over £100 billion,” Webb said. “This would harm businesses’ ability to invest, grow and create jobs, and many more schemes could be forced to close.” The DWP said: “If the Commission proposes rules requiring the maximum level of funding, more [direct benefit] schemes would be forced to close. On the basis of current trends, it is possible that over the next 20 years the percentage of remaining schemes open to new members would be brought further down, from a current 16% to 5%, and those open to existing members from 58% to less than 25%.”

• The Office for National Statistics has published its first full report on national well-being. It shows that overall national happiness has generally not been affected by the recession. (See 10.27am.)

• The Fabian Society, a Labour thinktank, has launched a review of public spending. It will be chaired by Lord McFall, the former chairman of the Commons Treasury committee. Andrew Harrop, the Fabian Society general secretary, said: “With the Labour Party consistently ahead in the polls, there is every chance that voters in 2015 will reject David Cameron and George Osborne’s plans for austerity. But politicians of the left have been slow to say what they would do instead on public spending. The Fabian Society’s new commission on the future of public spending will recommend where to spend and how to cut. The commission’s launch coincides with the government’s autumn statement which will show even greater spending pressures ahead and set out the government’s latest plans for cuts.”

Chris Grayling giving a speech to the Centre for Social Justice Photograph: Sean Dempsey/PA

There weren't any particular surprises in the Chris Grayling speech, but it's a solid, comprehensive affair that clearly sets out what he wants to achieve as justice secretary and it was mercifully free of stab-a-burglar-style populism. Here are the main points.

• Grayling said that he had set five priorities for the Ministry of Justice. They are: 1) Better rehabilitation; 2) More support for children in custody; 3) Making prison "cheaper not smaller"; 4) Reforming legal aid so that it commands public confidence; and 5) More support for victims.

• He said he would soon be publishing a paper with details of his plans to improve rehabilitation.

When someone leaves prison, I want them already to have a mentor in place to help them get their lives back together. I want them to be met at the prison gate, to have a place to live sorted out, and above all someone who know where they are, what they are doing, and can be a wise friend to prevent them from reoffending. And also to have training or rehab lined up – because this Government is determined to do more to address the root causes of offending: to get drug and alcohol users into recovery, and to address mental health needs.

Former offenders who have "gone straight" are often the best people to help keep offenders out of jail on their release, he said.

• He said more than half of prisoners say they need help to find a job when they leave prison. Over a third say they need help finding somewhere to live.

• He said using payment-by-results would allow 'a whole host of new participants" to get involved in providing rehabilitation services.

• He said he was in favour of a "multi-faceted approach to criminal justice". Issues llke education and welfare had a role to play in cutting crime, he said.

• He said he had launched a review of youth custody and wanted to put much more emphasis on education into the system.

We currently spend £245 million a year on the detention of about 1,800 young people. That’s about £100, 000 per place, but in some cases up to £200, 000 - five times the cost of sending them to Eton. Because seventy per cent of them reoffend and come back all over again. An accountant would call that a bad return on investment. I’d call it a travesty.

• He said he wanted to make prison cheaper.

We have a simple choice.

We either have fewer people in our prisons. Or we can bring down the cost of each prison place.

It will be no surprise which option I have chosen.

I want us to strain every sinew to make our prison system more cost effective, to bring those costs down.

He said new prisons were demonstrating how "better facilities can be delivered at much lower costs".

• He hinted that he would increase the penalty for people who smuggle phones into prison.

• He said he had ordered a review into how the legal aid system could be changed so it "completely commands the public's confidence".

• He said he would take further steps to address the problem of knife crime.

5.34pm GMT

I've got the full text of the Chris Grayling speech now. I'll post a summary as soon as I've read it.

5.34pm GMT

David Cameron had an announcement to make in Northern Ireland.

UK PM David Cameron confirms 2013 #G8 conference will be held in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. Details soon bbc.in/Q7s4ih

We did not learn a great deal, although there was a clear hint that concessions are on the way on the justice and security ("secret courts") bill (see 11.57am).

And it is interesting to know that the government is considering direct elections to national park authorities (see 12.10pm), although, in the light of the experience with police commissioners last week, ministers may have second thoughts about a fresh experiment with local democracy.

5.34pm GMT

Labour's Dennis Skinner asks for an assurance that the government will stop "bleating" about the turnout in union strike votes in the light of the turnout in the police commissioner elections.

Clegg says he has a lot of sympathy with this view. The Department for the Environment is "actively" looking at this issue, he says.

5.34pm GMT

Clegg says MPs are elected to serve their constituents. It is "no wonder" that people are unhappy about Nadine Dorries' decision to "eat insects in the jungle instead".

5.34pm GMT

Clegg says he is "sympathetic" to many of the proposed amendments to the justice and security bill suggested by the joint committee on human rights. The government will consider its recommendations seriously, he says.

5.34pm GMT

Labour's Keith Vaz asks Clegg if he will consider travelling to New Zealand to encourage the New Zealand government to change the legislation relating to succession to the throne. (The Commonwealth countries have agreed to do this, to stop male heirs taking precedence, but the legislation has not been passed yet.)

Clegg says one MP on the other side of the world (Nadine Dorries) is enough.

Keith Vaz has questioned Nick Clegg on New Zealand. Photograph: David Gadd/Allstar/Sportsphoto Ltd.

Clegg says being a Lib Dem is not yet a crime. At least this candidate did not have to be secretly filmed by Greenpeace for people to find out his views.

5.34pm GMT

Clegg says he still hopes to introduce a recall measure. But there would have to be a common understanding of what constituted serious wrong-doing, he says.

5.34pm GMT

Labour's Harriet Harman says the police commissioner elections did not take place in May next year because the Lib Dems thought this would harm their chances in the local elections. As a result the elections cost £25m more than necessary, she says.

Clegg says the elections were not good for deputy prime ministers past or present.

Harman says changing the date of the next election won't save the Lib Dems.

Clegg says that directly elected police commissioners are not that different from the directly elected members of police authorities proposed by Labour.

5.34pm GMT

Nick Clegg at DPMQs

Nick Clegg Photograph: BBC Parliament

Clegg says cross-party talks are still going on on party funding.

5.34pm GMT

David Cameron is in Northern Ireland today. The embargo on the news has been lifted.

MPs are to open an inquiry into Britain’s use of drones to kill militants in a move that could prompt the United States to reveal more about its “secret war”.

Members of the Commons Defence Select Committee are to investigate the deployment of armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Afghanistan as part of a two-year inquiry into the military’s use of lethal force, The Times has learnt.

MPs and peers may also hold a joint debate on Britain’s drone policy and the ethics of killing targets remotely. In addition, ministers face calls to reveal whether they share British intelligence with the US to help CIA-operated drones to kill terror suspects in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

His appointment is also being written up by many as a resort to unreconstructed right-wingery by desperate men who have given up “modernising” their party. Some of these critics are modernisers themselves. Mr Crosby is a thoroughgoing conservative and, unlike most Tories, it is possible to imagine him being at home in the US Republican party. But the fears are misplaced. He will frame, but does not choose, the substance of the party’s offer to the electorate. That is for politicians to decide. As author of the 2005 manifesto, which promised a cap not only on immigration but also on asylum, Mr Cameron carries more blame for the harshness of the Tory message back then than the Australian. Mr Crosby has been flexible enough to run two winning campaigns for London mayor Boris Johnson, a pro-immigrant politician in the world’s ultimate cosmopolis.

However, there is more to the misunderstanding of Mr Crosby than this. Large parts of elite opinion have simply lost sight of where the centre ground actually is. On issues such as crime, immigration, welfare and Europe, government policies routinely described as “rightwing” are, on a spectrum of public opinion, to the left of centre. According to Downing Street’s regular focus groups, and intensive research done earlier this year by the Policy Exchange think-tank, the electorate craves a more equitable kind of austerity and is undemonstratively liberal on matters of race and sexuality. It is also eye-wateringly tough on criminals, dependency culture and the EU, however. What is more, the salience of those issues to voters has risen over the past decade.

In some bits of Whitehall there has been an almost complete breakdown of trust between ministers and their civil servants. Mr Maude, who has become evangelical about reform, was so convinced that his officials were trying to get rid of him at the last reshuffle that afterwards, having kept his job, he asked to see the advice the civil servants had written for a new incoming minister. To his horror, but not his surprise, he found that they had recommended that his flagship policy for saving billions of pounds for the taxpayer — through the efficiency and reform group — should be watered down, with power returned to the departments. It made him only more determined to force through cuts.

Meanwhile, Michael Gove, who has long waged war on what he calls “the blob” of the educational establishment, is preparing to axe 1,000 Civil Service jobs. Although in the early days of the coalition, his officials leaked and briefed against him in an attempt to destabilise him, he has fought back and won. He wants to move into a smaller headquarters and, as a symbolic gesture, open a free school in the current Department for Education building. This dramatic shake-up is not a one-off but will be used as a blueprint for wider cuts across Whitehall.

Business plans that track the performance of government departments are ignored by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Secretary, according to a critical report out today.

A study by the Institute for Government says that the plans,which were introduced in 2010, are of “limited use and lack political backing”.

The Institute says that the business plans need substantial reform if they are going to be useful. “The plans have lost their link to the political side of the centre of government,” said Justine Stephen, editor of Whitehall Monitor.

“It appears that neither the Prime Minister nor any of the ‘Quad’ are seriously using them to track the progress of the reforms going on across government. They also aren’t designed ... to hold Whitehall’s permanent secretaries to account,” she added.

5.34pm GMT

The Crown Prosecution Service has announced that Andy Coulson, David Cameron's former communications chief, and Rebekah Brooks, the former News International chief executive, and others are being charged in relation to alleged corrupt payments to public officials. There are full details on our media live blog.

Andy Coulson, David Cameron's former chief communications adviser and former editor of the News of the World. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

And the main line? It's that the recession hasn't affected our happiness.

The recession has led to a higher proportion who are unemployed, with a particular impact on the young, and in 2009/10 more than 1 in 8 (12.3%) of us were finding it quite or very difficult to manage financially. Life satisfaction presents a more resilient picture, having remained broadly stable throughout the last decade and the most recent figures for those who report being somewhat, mostly or completely satisfied with their social life and job standing at 67% and 77.8% respectively and satisfaction with our family life averaging 8.2 out of 10 (where 1 is very dissatisfied and 10 is very satisfied). In terms of our health which is one of the most important influences on our well- being, our ‘healthy’ life expectancy has increased as has our overall satisfaction with our health.

Curiously, if you look at the chart on page 10, you'll see that between 2008 and 2009, which is when Lehman Brothers went bust, the global economy plunged into crisis and at one point the cash machines in the UK were only hours away from seizing up, national happiness actually went up.

Happiness chart Photograph: ONS

This is how the ONS explains this.

Life satisfaction remained broadly stable throughout the last decade. According to the World Database of Happiness, between 2007 and 2008, life satisfaction in the UK dropped by 0.17 points (from 7.15 - 6.98 out of 10) but appeared to recover more quickly than GDP or RNNI. Between 2008 and 2009 there was an increase of 0.4 points taking average life satisfaction to 7.38 out of 10. From 2009 onwards, life satisfaction fell once more, to 7.12 out of 10.

The fall in life satisfaction between 2007 and 2008 coincides with the beginning of the recession. This could perhaps be explained by an initial reaction to the news of the recession, whereby people were concerned about their finances and what the recession may mean for them. However, the recession was followed by a period when a person’s income was not immediately affected, perhaps explaining the increase in life satisfaction between 2008 and 2009.

5.34pm GMT

David Cameron has been tweeting about the energy proposal.

My promise to ensure energy customers get the lowest tariff is being delivered, despite Labour saying it couldn’t be done.

Angela Knight is a glutton for tough jobs. She used to head the British Bankers' Association. Then, having had enough of representing bankers, she decided to become the chief spokeswoman for possibly the second most unpopular group in corporate Britain, the energy companies. She's now chief executive of Energy UK, the trade body for energy companies.

If that is what the government wants, that is fine. What it will do is potentially remove some choice away from people and certainly some deals that people get at the moment ... Certainly it is the case that if you have restrictions and constraints, then you can't offer everything and you can't offer the variety of choice that you get at the moment.

5.34pm GMT

Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, has been giving interviews this morning ahead of his speech to the Centre for Social Justice later. Here are the main points. I've taken the quotes from PoliitcsHome.

• Grayling said he wanted to break the cycle of reoffending.

My whole goal in all of this is to end the situation where too many offenders walk out of the prison gate with £46 in their pockets, they don't know where to go, they don't know what to do, they get no support and then what happens they just go back to the same streets, the same people, the same offences as before and end up back in prison straight away. That's the cycle we've got to break.

This would involve ensuring the people coming out of jail got support, such as a place on the work programme, drug rehabilitation if needed or housing.

• He said he wanted to fund this on a payment-by-results basis. "We are going to stop just paying taxpayers’ money for a service and we are going to start paying for outcomes and results instead," he said.

• He said former offenders often made the best mentors to people coming out of jail.

• He said he wanted to ensure offenders were working in prison. He would be developing the work started by Kenneth Clarke in this area, he said.

When Chris Grayling was appointed justice secretary, he was depicted in the media as a hardline, bang ‘em up merchant (and, as far as I can tell, seemed quite happy about this). But today he’s giving what is being billed as his first major policy speech in his new role and it is on the liberalish them of rehabilation. “Whether you are the hardest of hardliners on crime, or the most liberal observer, every single one of us has a vested interest in an enlightened approach to reducing offending,” he will say. My colleague Alan Travis has already written a preview and I will be covering the speech in detail. We’ve also got Nick Clegg taking DPM’s questions in the Commons. And, as Patrick Wintour reports, Ed Davey will explain how the government will fulfil David Cameron’s promise to ensure all energy consumers are automatically put on the lowest energy tariff when he gives evidence to the Commons energy committee later today. But that will be out of my time, I’m afraid, because it does not start until 5pm.

2.30pm: Lt General Richard Barrons, deputy chief of the defence staff and Mark Sedwill, special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan, give evidence to the Commons defence committee on Afghanistan.

As usual, I'll also be covering all the breaking political news as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a summary at around 1pm and another in the afternoon.